In 2024, I submitted for examination my PhD dissertation titled, The human rights implications of Australia’s war on people smugglers. The examiners passed the thesis without amendments and I was awarded a doctor of philosophy. The following is the abstract for the thesis:
A key pillar of Australia’s border regime is premised on the characterisation of people smugglers as ‘evil’ and ‘immoral’ predators whose unsafe practices are responsible for deaths at sea. Based on this narrative, the Australian state has declared war on people smugglers, claiming stringent border control measures are needed to dismantle transnational criminal smuggling networks and save refugee lives.
The lack of public knowledge regarding smuggling practices and the nature of irregular migration has allowed this bipartisan political narrative to dominate Australian border politics. Vivid images of shipwrecks and horrific accounts of drownings which are blamed on smugglers have further entrenched this idea that smugglers are ‘evil’. Any divergence from the state narrative is viewed as support for criminality, disregard for domestic and international law, and in political terms demonstrates an inability or weakness to manage the nation’s border security.
This research interrogates the ‘evil people smuggler’ narrative promulgated by the Australian state and investigates the human rights implications of Australia’s ‘war on people smugglers’. It engages in a critical and constructive discussion about the identity and role of people smugglers, contextualising the global and historical phenomena within a post-colonial political context.
It details irregular migration practices to Australia, documenting experiences of people who have travelled as irregular migrants and used ‘people smugglers’, people who have facilitated irregular migration at various levels, and those whom the Australian state has punished for their alleged involvement in smuggling ventures. Importantly, this research presents evidence that people involved in smuggling are often victims of exploitation who have protection needs of their own.
The Australian state has employed various mechanisms to prevent irregular migrants from reaching its territory and to disrupt smuggling in the region. Most significant to this research are changes to national security laws and expanded executive powers which have enabled a secretive process of investigation and extrajudicial punishment whereby non-citizens suspected of people smuggling offences in Australia can have their visa cancelled, be held in indefinite or prolonged immigration detention without being tried in a criminal court and are at risk of deportation or removal from the country. This is only possible because non-citizens lack the same legal protections as Australian citizens.
Without a political community to guarantee their protection, refugees are vulnerable to the will of the nation. Despite the promises of international law, naked humanity, stripped of citizenship, does not offer reliable protection. Refugees or asylum seekers accused of people smuggling in Australia are excluded from the protection of the law and vulnerable to the authority of the state. A core finding of this study is that the ‘evil people smuggler’ narrative has created a category of person who sits outside normative legal protections and is denied fundamental human rights.